ABSTRACT
In 1968, Ula Stockl's Neun Leben hat die Katze/The Cat Has Nine Lives, one of the first feminist films of the sixties and her thesis film, premiered. This chapter considers Stockl's Nine Lives and the situation of women around 1968 with a focus on 'slow violence'. It focuses in particular on the nexus of patriarchal power structures, sexism, and poverty engaged by Stockl's Nine Lives. Stockl studied at the Ulm Institute from 1963 to 1968, working with Kluge and Reitz. Nine Lives was her thesis film. It combines an essayistic approach with a feminist focus well before the rise in feminist filmmaking of the 1970s. The chapter explores how the thematics together with the stylistics of Stockl's Nines Lives contributed to debates about women and violence around 1968. Stockl's Nine Lives pinpoints the hurdles preventing women from achieving fulfilment or from being liberated when living in an un-liberated or patriarchal society.
